Like a Trip To the Dentist -- Only Different / A vasectomy seemed like a good idea for lots of reasons. Besides, he was out of excuses.

T

he worst part of having a vasectomy is thinking about it. The second worst is having it, and the time afterwards is no bargain either. I'd recommend all three.

Among guys of a certain age, vasectomy talk is the male version of trading pregnancy stories. No, we know it isn't anywhere near as painful or dangerous, but it is all we've got.

Embarrassment is not the problem. Those already among the snipped can't wait to share the experience. In the weeks leading up to mine, I heard the same description from three 49ers, a member of the Warriors' front office and several random dads. Just a little tug, they said. Nothing to it. You'll be glad you did it.

I haven't seen such zeal in any group except ex-smokers. Make of that what you will.

Frankly, if you're thinking about it, you're almost certainly flat out of excuses. Your health plan probably covers it -- "Sure," said a friend, "what's more expensive, a one- hour vasectomy or a nine-month pregnancy?" It makes good health sense -- one time fix-up compared with expecting your partner to take birth control pills -- and it's a very '90s, sensitive-guy thing to do.

Besides, as my dad said when my daughter was born, "You'd better quit. You've got a boy and a girl, and those are all the choices you get."

The first step is to schedule an appointment with a urologist, which means practicing saying "urologist" without snickering. His job at this meeting is to scare you.

"You realize," he said, pausing to look gravely at my wife and me, "that this is COMPLETELY irreversible."

We nodded.

"Of course," he said, dropping his voice to a whisper, "it can be reversed. But for our purposes, it is irreversible."

The procedure could probably be accomplished right then and there, but an appointment is scheduled for a month later so that everyone will have a chance to make jokes. Have you heard the one about how the operation is painless but, "it's the sound of those two bricks slamming together that gets you"?

So have I. Several times.

Otherwise, the reaction was nearly unanimous.

"Well, GOOD for you," folks would beam proudly. No one was this excited when I had my nose re- routed to clear my sinuses.

There was one odd moment when a representative from the Giants' community relations department called to invite me to play in a charity golf tournament. I check my calender, but there it was -- V-Day.

"I'm afraid I can't," I told him. "But I've got a great excuse. I'm having a vasectomy."

"Oh my God," he said, sounding stricken. "That's terrible. How did that happen?"

The big day dawned clear and warm, and I was surprisingly unconcerned right up until I attempted to hop out of the waiting room chair when the nurse called my name and discovered that my knees had been replaced with bags of Wheat Chex.

To say you are conscious during the procedure is to badly understate the case. Besides the obvious difference in theater of operations, this is much like going to the dentist, with two exceptions.

First, at the dentist, you are not expected to chat. And second, the dentist always keeps the needle out of sight until the last second.

"So, you play golf?" asked the doctor as he unsheathed a huge syringe and needle clearly stamped "For use on full-grown horses only." He hummed to himself -- "tiny pinch here," he warned -- as the level on the syringe slowly went down.

To be perfectly honest, it didn't hurt a bit, not even the shot. He would pick up large, shiny instruments and I would hear them snip, clip and snap, but there was no pain at all.

It was only later, when the doctor was describing a particularly delicate seven iron he once had to hit from just off the edge of the green and he picked up the little electric torch to close off some of the bleeding, that we hit pay dirt.

"So," he was saying, as the faint buzzing and blue spark sent up a thin line of smoke, "I had a shot, but it wasn't a . . ."

"EEEEEE-yowwwwwwww!" I remarked, reflexively kicking the tray of instruments. They jumped up two inches, then clattered back down.

"Hummmm," said the doctor. "Maybe we need more medicine."

More medicine. Wow, is that a good idea. Much, much more medicine. That's what we need.

"And now," he said, after a dose of what seemed to be way too little medicine, "the other side."

There was nothing to the other side. A little pull, a little snip, that was it. It was only when he finished, and as I was watching the little curved needle go up and down carrying three feet or more of suture, that I began to think ahead.

"Well," he said, squinting at the thread and needle, "you probably wouldn't want to play this afternoon, although you could. You can play tomorrow, if you want."

And I could have, too, as long as I didn't have to bend over, twist or swing a club. It was when my wife went to hand me the phone and I made a short attempt to sit up to grab it, that I realized I might be using a couple of those pain pills the doctor had suggested I get.

I can say, however, that it was better every day. On the second day, tired of lying in bed, I let my 5- year-old daughter talk me into a bike ride. I put her into her seat over the back fender and then there was a long pause.

"What are you doing, Daddy?" she wanted to know.

"Daddy," I said, "is trying to lift his leg over the bike bar."

There was the many-different- colors stage, the I-think-the-stitches-are-coming-out stage and the extremely itchy stage.

But to be fair I was in almost no pain after the first day, and actually did play golf on the third. It is a simple, safe and virtually pain-free procedure. (Virtually, by the way, is defined as "in essence but not in fact.")

I'd recommend it. There's nothing to it. It's just a little tug. And after a week, it stops.